The garden of the human soul

It is almost a year since I started blogging and I am always wondering whether I'm repeating myself. I don't think I've written about this before. This Sunday morning I was reminded of Teresa of Avila's analogy of the human soul being like a garden. She described the stages of the spiritual life in terms of stages of prayer by using the analogy of watering the garden. It is a beautiful organic metaphor.

The four methods are sort of steps or stages by which a garden can be watered: drawing water from a well, obtaining water by means of an irrigation channel or hose, letting water flow from a stream, and receiving the rain directly from the heavens.

Drawing water from a well is where we take the initiative to place ourselves in the presence of God. Obtaining water from a channel or hose is the prayer of quiet which involves receiving and understanding consolation. Water from a stream where we find rest only in God for the stream comes to the place and is not directed. But this is at the same time both active and contemplative, where both doing good works and being with God come together. The fourth stage is like gentle rain watering the garden. This final stage is the state of mystical union with God.

But what is this water. I struggled this morning because I couldn't think of a passage which linked water with the Word of God which is what was suggested. I remembered Jesus talks about the consequences of receiving living water with the Samaritan woman. However the medieval spiritual writers associated water with the love of God, not the Bible. Has a whole history of interpretation been supplanted by the assumption that the Word of God can be used to understand the water metaphor in reading the Bible?

Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." John 4:13-14